Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Yamaha P-85--how to record?

I want to connect my P-85 to my computer for recording. Can someone tell me the best way to do this? Should I get an adapter and go from the 1/4" headphone jack to the 1/8" jack on my computer? Is the quality better if I use the UX16 USB-MIDI cable from Yamaha? Will Audacity work? Should I buy a better piece of software?

etc.

(My apologies if this has come up before. I tried to search and didn't find anything.)

There are two ways to go. (1) "MIDI". This means the kaypress data is set over USB to the computer where all the keypress and velocity data are recorded. Computer software converts this to piano (or other) sound. You can get some very high quality sound this way and the MIDI data is easy to edit for wrong notes and the like.

Or (2) recoed the audio sound from headphone jacks or lineout. Audacity works OK for this.

What else you need in theway of equipment depends on your computer and the quality of it's sound system.

If the computer is a Mac, it is prtty much plug and play, They are setup at the factory for both kinds of recording and editing. If you have a generic Windows PC then you have some work to do both hardware and software.

Also you have to ask yourself how serious you are about recording. It is just going to be one take while the tape rolls and not post production edit and mastering or are you going to combine the best parts or multiple "takes" and then work in post production ti polish the work

How you answer all these questions determines what you need.

Well, I want the best quality possible and I'm quite fond of audio editing. I'm not opposed to buying software, etc.

Also, I'll be using a high-end HP PC running Vista.

Get an interface like the Mbox Mini (which comes with Pro Tools software) and a MIDI-USB interface like Cakewalk's UM-2G. (The benefit of interfaces like the Cakewalk is "MIDI thru" which allows you to use it without a computer.) Switch the P85's "local control" to OFF. (Look that up in the manual.) Record the MIDI and the audio in Pro Tools--MIDI via the MIDI in/out jacks and MIDI-USB interface, and the sound via 1/4" outputs to the Mbox. You want to record the MIDI too, because if you upgrade with a new digital piano or software piano at some point, then you won't have to perform it all over again--just hook up the new piano (or load the new plug-in piano) and have Pro Tools play back the MIDI to record the sound again.

OK then you are going to want to us a "software instrument". Your P85 will be used as a kind a "computer keyboard" very much like the way a standard QWERTY keyboard is used.

Get a software edit/recording system (ProTools and CuBase are two common ones. Logic is also very common but it s Mac-only while the other two run on both PC and Mac. These are _expensive_ programs but both have "lite" versions and can be gotten cheaply as part of a bundle.

Also you need to get a virtual software piano. These can run inside the above or stand alone. Stand alone is OK for live playing, inside as a plug-in for more serous recording "punch in" multi tracking and so on. Some virtual pianos are "Pianoteq" and "Synthology's "Ivory". But there are a dozen other good ones. I like Sampltekk's "Black grand, close mic'd" You can hear sampls of it here If you playing is up to it you should be able to get the same sound quality. Here is aother sample, maybe better suited for clasical recording demo MP3 These sample sets sell for $49 but people seem to like to the others for 6 or 7 times the price. You will have to listen to hundreds of these to make up your mind.

You will likey need a good set on monitor speakers. ans eventually you will want a good USB audio interface. Problems to solve will be monitoring while you play and keeping latency down

Sounds good but how many dynamic layers does the steinway D have?
And you have to download it? Thats like how many gigs ?